[TowerTalk] EFHW

[Wilson Lamb]

It's interesting that hams have been using end fed wires since the beginning, without fanfare, often after being told they were hard to use and a poor choice. 
Now someone has christened them EFHW and  they are popping up all over the place, and especially in the marketplace! 
I've been using them for 60+ years now, with reasonable success, always with some sort of tuner. 
Hacking up a magic UNUN and hoping it will match a wildly varying impedance, on multiple bands, seems a stretch only a marketer would love. 
Remember, if it's broadband it's lossy.  Have we forgotten the magic B&W dipole?  Helpful resistors were hidden in the center connector to make it look better. 
A little parallel coil and variable cap, link coupled to your rig, will work fine, with a little tweaking. 
An itty bitty T network tuner even better.  It's not as small as the UNUN, but it will match almost anything almost anywhere! 
And they are often cheap at hamfests, if you aren't in a hurry. 
An evening with the Handbook and an evening of building would put you in great shape, if you want to learn some (or some more)  nitty gritty. 
My only recent trouble with end feeding was when I had insulation breakdown and burned a hole in the aluminum cladding of my shack window. 
I was not operating QRP! 
73, 
Wilson 
W4BOH